


Love Notes

by ladyc2



Category: KAT-TUN (Band), Kanjani8 (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-07
Updated: 2014-03-07
Packaged: 2018-01-14 21:35:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1279678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyc2/pseuds/ladyc2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Ryo discovers Kame has been receiving love notes, can he get to the bottom of who is behind them?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Notes

**Author's Note:**

> Written for capslock turtle Birthday Bandwagon for eevaleena

Nishikido Ryo walked aimlessly around KAT-TUN's dressing room thoroughly bored. He glanced over at Pi, who was rummaging through someone's bag.

"Do you even know what you're looking for?" he asked.

"Of course," Pi answered, before pausing for a moment, a small frown appearing on his face. "Or I will when I see it anyway."

Ryo didn't bother resisting the temptation to roll his eyes at his best friend.

"And I'm here because...?"

Pi grinned up at him. "Of course I invited you to come along. You were complaining just the other day that we never get to hang out as much as we used to anymore."

Ryo sighed. "I really pity your dates," he paused before adding, "Even more than usual."

"Shut up and help me before KAT-TUN gets back," Pi ordered before turning back to the bag and continuing his task. Ryo wandered over to the nearest desk and half-heartedly started moving things around. He didn't bother to tell Pi that if even he didn't know what he was looking for, there was no chance Ryo was going to be able to find it. It didn't take him long to realise he was looking through Kame's things. As he shifted what looked to be several pages of hastily written lyrics, a small piece of pink paper fell out from between them and onto the ground. Ryo bent to pick it up his eyes unconsciously glancing over the words as he did so. He put it back on the table. _Wait! What?_ He glanced down at the paper again,

 

_I do not seek to quench your love's hot fire,  
But qualify the fire's extreme rage,  
Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason.¹_

 

He turned the note over, trying to see if there was a name on it, but it was blank.

"Hey, Pi," he called out. "Do you recognise this writing?"

Yamapi stopped what he was doing and came over. As he reached him, Ryo handed over the note. He looked at it for a few moments before he shook his head and handed it back. "Who's it for?"

"It was with Kame's stuff."

Yamapi whistled appreciatively. "So Kame's got a secret admirer. I'm kind of jealous."

"Jealous! Why would you be jealous?" It seemed to Ryo that curiosity was the better emotion. After all, it didn't look like fan mail, so that meant the note must have either come from a staff member or one of the other talents; and the Jimusho was generally pretty good about weeding out crazy fans during the interview process for the staff. _Which left....?_

"Oh come on, Ryo. Secret Love Notes." He gave Ryo his most starry eyed gaze. "It's romantic."

"Did you eat paint as a kid?"

Yamapi pouted. "No. Why...?" Yamapi's words were interrupted by the door flying open, followed by one of the Juniors Yamapi had arranged for a lookout to make sure they weren't caught.

"KAT-TUN's coming," he breathed out heavily, as if he'd run a marathon and not just up the hallway.

"Let's get out of here," Yamapi practically squeaked.

*

Ryo made it all the way back to Kanjani8's dressing room before he realised he still had the note clutched tightly in his hand.

Ryo stared down at the piece of paper. _Who could've written it?_ Suddenly the paper was snatched out of his hands. Ryo turned to see Yoko, his smirk getting wider and wider as he read the piece of paper.

"Ooooh! Ryo's got a secret admirer."

Ryo tried to grab the piece of paper back but Yoko held it out of reach. "Shut up, it's not for me."

Yoko arched an eyebrow. Never had so much disbelief been etched into one facial feature. "So you're writing a love note to someone?"

Ryo bristled a little at that. He could totally write love letters if he wanted to. He just didn't want to. _Ever._ Still, in this case, Yoko was maddeningly right.

"I didn't write it either."

"Then...?"

"It's Kame's. I just happened to find it." Ryo admitted reluctantly. "On his desk."

"And you took it?"

Ryo didn't like the calculating look on Yoko's face at all.

"I was just trying to figure out who wrote it is all."

"You like Kame!" Yoko practically cackled.

"Shut up. I do not. That's ridiculous." _It was ridiculous wasn't it?_

"What's ridiculous?" Ohkura's asked as he entered the room, followed by Yasu and Maru.

Yoko practically beamed with malicious glee. "Someone's writing love notes to Kame and we're jealous,"

"I'm not jealous." _He wasn't, really._

Ohkura frowned. "Wait. Are we jealous about Kame, or because we want love notes?"

"Who the hell would want stupid love notes? I'm not a girl." Ryo defended and then he realised what that might imply. "And I don't like Kame," he added.

"We like Kame," Yoko, Yasu, Maru and Ohkura chorused together.

"What's with this 'we' stuff anyway? Did I miss the meeting where we agreed to become a hive mind or something?"

"You were in the bathroom," Subaru piped up from where he and Hina had been sitting on the couch. Ryo hadn't thought they'd been paying attention. They both stood, Subaru patting Ryo briefly on the shoulder as he passed before joining the others who were now grouped in a circle. They all stuck out their hands to place them on top of each other.

Yoko sounded determined. "Operation 'Fix Kame up with Ryo' is now active. Start-o!"

"O!" The others chorused in unison.

Ryo wanted to facepalm. However he looked at it, this could not end well. Before he could say anything to stop them, though, they had already raced out of the room, Yoko yelling something about 'Phase 1'.

He decided he'd better go after them.

*

An hour later and Ryo still hadn't had any luck. He knew the building was big, but how hard could it be to find six people? Especially when those people were his bandmates. He was on his third sweep of the lobby when he spotted an altogether different person making his way through the doors. Kamenashi Kazuya. Ryo stopped and studied him for a moment. He didn't look particularly love-struck. Not that Ryo would know what that might look like - probably something like one of those sickly sweet grins he used to throw in Jin's direction when they were kids and which had made Ryo want to throw up. It caused Ryo to scowl just at the memory. Not that that seemed to put off Kame, who had spotted him now, his face breaking into a smile as he made his way over. The funny thing was, Kame's smile beaming at him seemed to want to break the scowl off Ryo's face. Ryo fought back his own answering grin, instead schooling his face into a neutral expression.

"Hey Ryo. It's been a while."

"Yeah," Ryo answered curtly. "You haven't seen the rest of Kanjani around have you?"

Kame shook his head. Ryo was about to move on, when he realised that whatever his band mates were up to, Kame was probably going to be at the centre of it.

"Uh, listen, if you do see them, they might say some weird stuff. Just ignore them."

"Okay." Kame sounded half confused, half curious. Ryo supposed he owed Kame an explanation. After all, they might start spouting love confessions at him, if they caught him.

"We, I, accidentally found this." His voice wavered and he could feel his cheeks heating up in embarrassment as he handed over the piece of paper. Kame's face was blank as he read the note and Ryo couldn't tell what he was thinking. After a few moments, he deposited the note in his pocket and started walking towards the elevators. Ryo followed along, his bandmates temporarily forgotten. Now that it was all out in the open, Ryo might actually find out what it was all about. _Wasn't that what he wanted?_

"Nakamaru says it's Shakespeare." Kame finally spoke as the elevator doors closed on them.

_Was he being deliberately obtuse?_ "Somehow, I don't think Shakespeare is writing to you from beyond the grave Kame."

Kame snorted. "Of course not! Nino wrote it."

"Eh!!!" _Nino? Arashi's Nino?_ But it had to be; how many other Nino's were there?

Kame leaned back against the wall, nodding. "It started when we were on Music Station together. We were in the green room, messing around and Nino was being, well, Nino."

Ryo nodded for Kame to go on. He didn't need any elaboration on that point; he'd been on the receiving end of Nino's attentions a few times himself when they were filming and promoting Ryusei no Kizuna.

"Anyway, I finally told him that if he wanted me that badly, he was going to have to work a hell of a lot harder than that. The notes started arriving the next day."

Ryo had to agree that Nino was the likely culprit. It didn't seem like a coincidence.

Kame laughed. "You should feel lucky you found this one." And when Ryo looked at him confused, he elaborated. "They tend to alternate between romantic quotes from famous writers, like this one, and really, really filthy." Kame tilted his head to the side in thought. "I'm not even sure the last one he sent is physically possible. When I asked the others, Nakamaru refused to even read it, Junno said it _might_ be possible if you were really flexible, and Tat-chan just laughed at me." Just as the elevator doors sprang open, Kame admitted, "I'm half tempted to give in just to find out."

Ryo followed him out and into the corridor. "Woah! Hold up a minute. I don't think that's a very good idea."

Kame just looked back at him, grinning. "I said I'm tempted, not stupid." He paused just outside KAT-TUN's room and turned, giving Ryo a very pointed look. Ryo gulped; that look didn't bode well.

"I'm thinking I should be asking how you managed to find this note. I'm pretty sure I left it with my lyrics because I thought it was kind of sexy and was considering whether I could work it into my next song."

Ryo brought his hand up to rub the back of his neck, not quite meeting Kame's gaze. The embarrassment was back in full force. "Uh, well, you see, we might have been in your dressing room earlier," he finally confessed.

Kame gave him a flat stare. "We? You and...?"

"Pi," Ryo admitted warily. Kame just nodded like that was exactly what he expected to hear. He sauntered back the few steps to where Ryo was and leaned in close. Ryo had to almost stop himself from leaning back. _What the fuck? Was Kame about to kiss him?_ He was relieved, yes relieved was definitely the right word for what he felt, when it seemed Kame had only leaned in close to whisper his next words.

"Well you can tell Pi, next time you see him that I'm smart enough not to keep _that_ in my dressing room. He should just give up; he'll never win this bet."

Kame turned away and stepped up to the door of KAT-TUN's room. As he placed his hand on the knob, he added,

"And as for you, I thought you'd know better than to go through other people's things."

And with that he pushed open the door and slammed it in Ryo's face.

*

Ryo made his way back to Kanjani8's dressing room, still a little perplexed by what he'd found out and by Kame’s behaviour. He'd sounded so disappointed. He found Yoko sitting on the couch. When Yoko saw him, he gestured excitedly for Ryo to sit next to him. Ryo reluctantly obeyed, not sure he really wanted to know what Yoko found so exciting.

"So we did a little digging," Yoko started, "and found out who was writing the notes. I went to talk to Uchi, because he's pretty close to KAT-TUN, and he didn't know from them but he had heard from Takada-kun, who'd been talking to Yuma-kun, who'd heard from Takaki-kun that Yuto-kun knew from Koyama-kun, who'd heard from Goseki-kun, who'd heard from Shori-kun, who'd heard from Miyata-kun who found out from Chinen-kun, who knew from when he'd talked to Ohno-kun, that it was,"

"Nino," Ryo finished for him.

Yoko looked slightly put out and Ryo had to bite back a grin. "How did you know?"

Ryo shrugged, trying to affect nonchalance. "I asked Kame."

Yoko's smile returned at the mention of Kame's name.

"You talked to Kame, huh?"

Ryo ignored the suggestiveness in Yoko's tone.

"Anyway, that's the end of it. I wanted to know who wrote it, and now I do. Time to move on."

"Awww, you're so naive sometimes Dokkun. It's cute." Before Ryo could get in yet another protest, Yoko was up from his seat, "Anyway I've got to run. I'm meeting Hina so we can get phase two of the plan underway."

"Phase two? What's phase two?"

But Yoko had already gone.

*

A few hours later, despite his words to Yoko that his curiosity was finished with, Ryo found himself hovering around the drink machine just outside the dance studio's, waiting for Arashi to come out of a practice session. He drummed his fingers restlessly against the glass. _What was his problem? Why couldn't he let it go?_ It wasn't any of his business if Nino and Kame wanted to play some sort of pseudo-romance game with each other.

"If you want something out of the machine, you're supposed to put money into it," an amused voice brought Ryo out of his thoughts and he looked up to find Nino grinning at him. "You alright?"

"Yeah. I just..." Ryo stopped. _He just what?_ Well if he was going to be a nosey moron, he may as well get it over and done with; he had the feeling Nino would probably never let him live the coming conversation down anyway.

"Actually, can I ask you something?"

"Sure," Nino agreed. "What's up, Ryo-chan?"

_Right_. Ryo had been thinking about this. His plan was to ask some acting advice from Nino and then subtly work his way around to the topic of Kamenashi.

"You're sending love notes to Kamenashi?" Ryo blurted out. _So much for subtle._

Nino's smirk seemed to get even wider, "I guess you could say that."

"Why?"

"Why not?"

"Because he's...He's..." Ryo crossed his arms in front of his chest. "It's just not right?" he finally mumbled.

The look on Nino's face changed to one not much different than the one Yoko had given him earlier. "You're jealous," he stated, clearly amused by the thought.

"I'm not jealous." Ryo defended, not for the first time today.

Nino ignored him. "You should have told me sooner. If you like, I could put in a good word for you in my next note."

_What?_ That didn't make any sense. _Wasn't Nino writing the notes because he was interested in Kame?_

When he voiced that thought aloud, Nino lifted his gaze and sighed dreamily. "Ah, the delectable Kamenashi Kazuya. To have him in my bed would be the stuff of dreams." He brought his gaze back down to meet Ryo's. "But who am I to stand in the way of true love."

"True Love?" _What was Nino on about?_

"Oh come on Ryo. If you didn't care, you wouldn't be here." He patted Ryo on the shoulder patronizingly before walking off. "Don't worry, I won't stand in your way," he called back.

Ryo wanted to scream. Why was everyone insisting on harping on about feelings he didn't even have? He was just curious that's all. _Could nobody else see how bizarre this whole thing was?_ "I do not have feelings for Kamenashi Kazuya!" he yelled down the hallway to Nino's retreating back.

"Well that's a relief," A voice behind him uttered. A very familiar voice. Ryo whirled around to be confronted by an amused looking Kamenashi Kazuya and the rest of KAT-TUN.

"What are you doing here?"

Kame gestured to one of the rooms. "Practice."

"Oh." _Of course_ , Ryo thought, _It was obvious really._ "Right, well then, I'll...."

Ryo fled.

*

"I'd make a great boyfriend. Kame's an idiot." Ryo downed another glass and gestured to the bartender for more. Next to him, Yamapi just nodded.

"Of course he is."

"I've never had any complaints before."

"I believe you."

_Liar_ , Ryo thought. It was clear Yamapi was just humouring him. Well, Ryo didn't care. He took another drink. Kame didn't know what he was missing. If he did know, then he sure as hell wouldn't have sounded so damn happy that Ryo wasn't interested in him. He slammed his glass down on the bar counter.

"Kame's an idiot," he repeated.

"And you're drunk." It sounded like Yamapi was done humouring him.

"So?" He was an adult. He could get drunk if he wanted too.

"So did you ever stop to think that maybe everyone else has a point?"

Ryo frowned. _What did that have to do with being drunk?_

"I don't get you."

"For someone who's not interested in Kame, you sure spend a lot of time thinking and talking about him."

"I do not." Ryo insisted.

"Are you sure about that?"

Ryo tried to think through the haze of alcohol clouding his brain. He was sure he'd gone large swathes of time without thinking about Kamenashi. And even if he hadn't, it was only because Kame's face was plastered on everything: magazines, TV shows, movies, commercials, billboards. _Jeez, the guy should take a break every once in a while._ The point was you couldn't get away from the guy even if you wanted to. And Ryo didn't. _No, wait. That wasn't right. He did - want to...want...want him._

Something of Ryo's thoughts must have showed on his face, for Yamapi just sighed,

"Now you're getting it."

*

The next day, amidst the pounding headache and his band mates constant attempts to implement their 'plan' (apparently they were up to phase 7. Ryo wasn't entirely sure where phases 3 through 6 had gotten too), Ryo did his best not to ponder on his hazy reflections from the night before. So, he could probably admit he was a little attracted to Kame, but who the hell wasn't? Didn't mean he wanted to do anything about it. The whole idea of him and Kame together was ludicrous. He tried picturing it - he and Kame together. _Kissing Kame. Touching Kame. Feeling Kame._

"Ryo! Ryo!" Ryo snapped out of his thoughts, to find Yasu staring at him in concern. "Are you alright? You look a little flushed."

"I'm fine," Ryo snapped. He pushed his chair back and went to lay down on the couch. "I just drank too much last night."

The others exchanged unreadable glances, but they thankfullly left him alone, and Ryo settled in as comfortably as he could to try and sleep it off.

*

When he woke up, there was another presence near him, but it wasn't any of his band mates. Ryo blinked as his eyes tried to adjust, until his vision coalesced into the form of Kamenashi.

"Kame?" he mumbled blurrily, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you." Kame whispered back quietly.

"It's alright." Ryo swung his legs down to the ground so he was sitting up properly. "What's up?"

Kame didn't answer straight away, preferring to look around a little. "So I guess Nino finally got bored. No note today."

Ryo didn't reply. _Was Kame upset about it?_ He got his answer a moment later.

"I think I might actually miss it. I mean, I knew it was just a joke, but it was kind of nice. To think someone cares about you enough to do that."

"More like creepy." Ryo groused. "If they like you that much they should just tell you. Not hide behind stupid bits of paper."

"Well, I guess when you put it like that," Kame agreed eventually. He continued to inspect the room like he hadn't been in here before and everything was fascinatingly new, instead of merely a carbon copy of his own band's dressing room.

Ryo watched him for a while before asking, "Did you come here just to tell me that?"

Kame turned towards him, slightly surprised. Then he shrugged. "You seemed like you were interested."

"I'm not."

"Oh." Kame's face fell. Ryo continued on,

"I thought I was at first. Turns out though, that I wasn't really interested in your love notes at all."

He could tell Kame was about to make an excuse and leave. Before he could though, Ryo reached over and grabbed his wrist, yanking him down onto the couch beside him.

"What I'm interested in," Ryo continued, "is you."

"That's not what you said in the hallway yesterday."

"I was in denial."

"You're straight."

It was a valid concern. For all intents and purposes, he probably looked very straight, even to the people he was closest too.

"Admittedly, I've never been with a guy before." he conceded. "Doesn't mean I've never thought about it."

Kame looked considering. "And you've thought about it with me?"

Ryo thought back to before he'd gone to sleep. "Very much so."

"Okay. So now what?" Kame's voice was calm and steady, but his hands resting on knees were curled up tightly and his gaze was fixated on the opposite side of the room. Ryo reached out his hand and gently grabbed Kame's chin, turning his face towards himself.

"Now we do this," he murmured, before closing the gap between them and pressing his lips to Kame's. Kame's lips were so soft and this was so much better than when he'd imagined it. Especially when he swiped his tongue against Kame's bottom lip and the other man opened up, tongue tentatively swirling against Ryo's as the kiss deepened. He pushed Kame back further into the couch as he kept on kissing, never wanting to stop now that he'd started. And Kame seemed to agree, his hands coming up to wrap around Ryo's neck. Ryo's own hands wandered the other way, taking in firm muscles and coming to rest on Kame's hips. He could definitely get used to this.

*

Yoko slowly let the door swing shut. He'd forgotten his trumpet and had come back to get it, but as he'd pushed the door open, he'd been confronted with the sight of Ryo and Kamenashi making out on the couch. He grinned to himself.

"Yes! Phase 10 complete. Mission accomplished." he uttered in triumph. He needed to find the others. A celebration was in order.

 

¹"The Two Gentlemen of Verona" (Act II, scene 7, line 21). William Shakespeare.


End file.
